Kidney patient Tihana Macakanja, right, outside York Place where she and her sister, Duska Burruss, used to operate a shop.

hawes spencer

By Brittany Gamble

It’s 11am, and Tihana Macakanja has just spent two and a half
hours hooked to a machine; and even after the procedure ends, she's
facing a 15-minute drive home. It's an arduous cycle that she
repeats three times a week, but with her closest relatives ruled
out as kidney donors, dialysis is something she could be stuck with
for a long time.

A native Croat, Macakanja, along with her mother, father, and a
sister, came to America in 1999. They left behind her older sister–
and the bombs that were falling during the Croatian War for
Independence.

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In 2005, on Charlottesville's Downtown Mall, the two sisters
founded a Yugoslavian food store called X-Yuga. After two years,
however, the duo closed the store. Macakanja, now living in
Fluvanna, makes a thrice-weekly trek to a UVA-affiliated medical
facility in Zion Crossroads for her dialysis.

First learned of her failing kidneys when she became pregnant in
2003, Macakanja lost most of her kidney function in 2010.

“Almost two years ago, I started with dialysis,” she says. “It’s
supposed to b...

Biggest contract:Ryan
Zimmerman, the star UVA baseball shortstop turned star
third-baseman for the Washington Nationals, has reportedly inked a
deal that could be worth as much as $150 million. NBC Washington
has the
story.

Boldest call for eminent
domain: Fisherville resident Starke Smith calls for
Augusta to take over the primo, yet dilapidated real estate on
Afton Mountain owned by Phil Dulaney,
NBC29 reports. What some call the "Afton
Slums" stand as an eyesore entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway
and Skyline Drive, and the former gas station, motel, and
restaurant are empty shells of could-be tourist services.

More likely target of
eminent domain: Camp Holiday Trails, a facility for
special-needs children and neighbor to the Ragged Mountain
reservoir, complains that it feels shortchanged in negotiations
with the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority and by the $35K it
received for half an acre– under threat of eminent domain, ...

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Edward Hogshire, the judge who presided over the recent
second-degree murder conviction of George W. Huguely V, made a
last-minute decision about electronic evidence in another criminal
trial that plunged the defense into such a quandary that despite
the assembly of victim, witnesses, and potential jurors at the
Charlottesville Circuit Courthouse, the defense won permission to
continue the case.

On February 29, Hogshire was slated to launch a new trial for
Jeffrey Kitze, the so-called "graduation day rapist," on the
stalking charge for which he was convicted last year in General
District Court. However, Hogshire's day-earlier decision to allow
Global Positioning System, or GPS, data into evidence delayed the
trial because, according to courthouse sources, the defense now has
to formulate new strategies.

Kitze is the man convicted of the notorious rape of his sister's
roommate, a crime that involved bashing the woman's head with a
tire iron both before and after the rape, which biza...

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Russ Simpson, the Nelson County man who vowed to race a
snowmobile across the icy wilds of Alaska in search of adventure
for himself and money for charity, has returned from more than two
weeks in the 49th state with more questions than snow in his
teeth.

"I'm not quite sure what happened up there," says Simpson, who'd
planned on making a 1,100-mile journey in the Iron Dog race across
the Alaskan wilderness. The subject of a recent Hook
profile, he returned to Virginia in late February after race
officials, having told him he had insufficient equipment, then
proceeded to transfer him among teams where the roadside apple
merchant-turned-racer says he just didn't feel welcome.

Race organizers ended up refunding his entry fee, but the travel
cost of a 16-day journey to Alaska is something Simpson will have
to absorb. Along with some positives to temper his
disappointment.

"I can't look back on this and say it was a nightmare," says the
middle-aged Simpson, reveling in the newfound health that he got
from near-daily bicycle training atop the Blue Ridge and the over
$5,000 he raised for a UVA team fighting melanoma.